Tensions Are Rising Between Poland and Ukraine

How Nawrocki Jeopardized His Country’s International Interests

In the crisis rocking Ukrainian-Polish relations, unprecedented since both countries gained independence, President Karol Nawrocki bears a heavy responsibility. In an effort to please the national far right, he has jeopardized his country’s international policy toward Ukraine—a move that delights Putin. His decision is merely a pretext for attacking Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki embodies the extreme nationalist fringe in Poland, which has always been anti-Ukrainian and has always looked down on Ukrainians. He owes his election largely to this fringe of the electorate, and it is this group he seeks to please.

To score political points on the domestic stage, he has just sacrificed one of the main pillars of Poland’s foreign policy since 1990—a policy based on the need to maintain good relations with Ukraine as an independent and democratic state, intended to serve as a bulwark between Poland and imperialist Russia. This is a goal toward which all Polish politicians have worked since 1990—whether Tusk’s right-wing liberals, the left, or former President Andrzej Duda of the Law and Justice Party (PiS)—as well as many Ukrainian politicians, including President Zelensky. This founding principle of the Polish state was already articulated in the aftermath of World War II by Jerzy Giedroyć, a Polish moral authority living in exile in Maisons-Laffitte, France, who stipulated that Poland could only enjoy a peaceful existence, free from the threat of imperialist Russia, if its neighbors were an independent and democratic Ukraine and Belarus¹.

There is a complex history between Poles and Ukrainians, one little known abroad, marked by peaks and abysses, rises and falls, bloodshed and resistance, and vast territories that have alternately belonged to Poland and Ukraine. Non-nationalist Poles assert that the future cannot be built on the past, for the past will not change. Of course, the past must be acknowledged and addressed, which is the work of historians, not politicians. The future must be built by looking ahead, in the interest of both states, and that interest is unequivocal today: that Ukraine hold firm and not succumb to imperialist Russia. Poles perceive Putin as a major threat to themselves; that is why they are arming themselves as much as they can, already devoting 5% of their GDP to defense (France remains at 2%).

The Anti-Ukrainian Polish Far Right

In this context, it is difficult for a non-Pole to understand why the Polish nationalist right attacks Brussels, Berlin, and even Ukraine far more than it does Russia. And this is not only verbal but sometimes physical, directed against Ukrainians living in Poland. Attacks against them in public places are on the rise. Some leaders of the radical right, known as the “Confederation of the Polish Crown,” even openly support the Russian narrative and do not hesitate to accept invitations to cocktail parties hosted at the Russian Embassy.

Just recently, Nawrocki hosted Jordan Bardella, president of France’s National Rally, in Warsaw during Bardella’s European tour. He expressed hope that Bardella would become president of France. Nawrocki is, in a sense, a Polish version of Marine Le Pen. He is banking on the far right, calculating that once 77-year-old Jarosław Kaczyński leaves the political scene, the PiS party will collapse and he will take the helm of a new, unified right-wing movement, including even its radical fringes (which currently account for 20% in the polls).

He has never been particularly supportive of Ukraine; his election campaign already included numerous anti-Ukrainian elements, and since taking office a year ago, he has not visited the country even once. He met with Zelensky only when the latter came to see him in Warsaw last December.

Yet his predecessor, Andrzej Duda—though also elected under the banner of Kaczyński’s nationalist right—had visited Ukraine some fifteen times. He did so both on the eve of the Russian invasion and afterward, in April 2022, becoming the first foreign head of state to travel to Kyiv, accompanied by representatives from the Baltic states. He returned there seven times. His unconditional support for Ukraine is a great credit to Duda.

In contrast, when Nawrocki received President Zelenskyy in Warsaw for their first meeting, he immediately presented him with a book about the crimes committed by Ukrainians against Poles—known in Poland as “the Volhynia massacre.” This was blatant provocation on his part, which Zelensky took very badly.

How did all this begin?

A few weeks ago, Zelensky awarded a military unit—which had requested the honor—the title of “Hero of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA),” in reference to the former military organization that fought for national independence. No one in Poland would likely have paid it any mind, but President Nawrocki, drawing on his background as a historian specializing in certain aspects of the 20th Century, got wind of the matter. He sensed that this could win him points with his far-right electorate and blew the issue out of proportion until it became a major problem in international politics and relations with Ukraine. He issued an undiplomatic ultimatum to Zelensky, demanding that he change the name, and when the Ukrainian president did not comply, he took an absurd step: he decided to strip him of Poland’s highest honor, the Order of the White Eagle which, incidentally, Zelensky had not received from him, but from his predecessor, Andrzej Duda.

For more than four years, Zelensky has been living under enormous pressure, bearing the full weight of the Russian war on his shoulders, traveling the world to explain and persuade, and maneuvering in the face of the unpredictable Trump. The name of a military unit most likely slipped past his attention—he had other fish to fry. He could not have suspected that the Polish head of state would seize upon an isolated incident and turn it into a major international incident.

Escalation

Things then accelerated. Zelensky packed up his medal and mailed it to Nawrocki; all former Ukrainian presidents, as well as the Ukrainian ambassador to Warsaw, followed suit by returning their Polish honors to President Nawrocki.

In Warsaw, however, liberals, including leading figures of the anti-communist opposition, mobilized against Nawrocki’s decision. Several of them, as a sign of solidarity with Zelensky, returned the Polish decorations they had received in the past to Nawrocki. An initiative has been launched to award Zelensky a new Polish civic honor, and various other expressions of support for Ukraine are emerging. Conversely, Jarosław Kaczyński and Senate Vice President Michał Kamiński (who is close to the Christian Democrats) have announced their intention to return their Ukrainian decorations to Kyiv.

Inspired by the Polish president and without any tangible reason, Jindřich Rajchl, a Czech lawmaker from the far-right nationalist party, recently called on the Czech president to strip Zelensky of the Czech Republic’s highest honor, the White Lion. This was a good opportunity for him to display his hatred of Ukraine and its president and to support his friends on the Polish far right.

Adam Michnik, one of the leading figures of liberal Poland and editor-in-chief of the daily Gazeta Wyborcza, described Nawrocki’s act as “an unacceptable gesture, a spit in the face of the president of a country at war with Putin’s Russia. It was odious, wrong, and false,” he said. But it was also, in his view, “a slap in the face of the entire Polish democratic tradition ” which was based on the motto “For our freedom and yours.” Through his gesture, Nawrocki has, in his view, sided with Great Russian propaganda.

The first to applaud Nawrocki is, of course, Putin. Dividing Ukrainians and Poles is his dream, and he likely never imagined that the Polish president would take care of it for him. And for free. “Poland has finally uncovered Nazi sympathizers in Ukraine,” said Kirill Dmitriev, an advisor to Putin.

Nawrocki’s move, which some observers believe was intentional, came shortly before a major international conference on Ukraine’s reconstruction was held. It took place for the first time in Poland, where dozens of leading European political figures, including the President of the European Commission and the German Chancellor as well as hundreds of business people gathered. The conference was a great success for Prime Minister Tusk, who managed to bring it to his hometown of Gdańsk.

But the main protagonist, Zelensky, was absent. Only the Ukrainian prime minister attended. This did not prevent the signing of 160 trade agreements, but symbolically, it was a major blow. However, following Nawrocki’s decision, Zelensky could not attend.

The UPA does not have the same meaning for Poles as it does for Ukrainians

Awarding the title of “Hero of the UPA” to a unit was certainly a misstep on Zelensky’s part. His advisors should have warned him that the UPA was to Poland what a red rag is to a bull. But this touches on the fact that each of these peoples perceives certain elements of their shared history differently. The UPA has a different meaning for Ukrainians than it does for Poles. For the latter, it is an organization that, during the war, slaughtered tens of thousands of Poles in western Ukraine. Some historians say there were 100,000 victims, others 80,000, and still others 40,000. The goal was to carry out ethnic cleansing of that territory; the UPA was banking on the possibility of a referendum to be held there after the war and wanted to ensure that the population consisted solely of Ukrainians.

These events remain a sensitive and, for some, painful, subject in Poland. They are demanding exhumations and apologies from the Ukrainians. But above all, it is an issue that the highly nationalist Polish right wing periodically brings up for purely political reasons. The right has four favorite themes: Jews, Ukrainians and Ukraine, Germany as an alleged threat, and the European Union as a liberal, non-Catholic space.

For many Ukrainians, however, the UPA is the symbol of the struggle for national independence. If they were to reject it, they might not have much left. Not everyone was fortunate enough to free themselves from the occupier through a Velvet Revolution. UPA fighters are regarded, especially in the west of the country, as national heroes who fought the Soviets, even after the war; some of its units holding out until the 1950s. Much like the Polish “cursed soldiers”—now the pride of Poland—who also resisted communist rule for several more years after the war.

As former Polish Foreign Minister Adam D. Rotfeld noted, Zelensky—a child of his time, born in 1978—might have seen the UPA soldiers solely as fighters for Ukrainian independence against Moscow’s communism. Since, in Soviet schools, they were labeled “fascists,” “Nazis,” or “Banderites,” he could only take the opposite stance—without realizing how differently the UPA is perceived in Poland.

In Europe, especially in its western part, it is difficult to understand the deep wound that marks relations between Ukrainians and Poles. Much remains unsaid by historians, and there are still blind spots in school textbooks, as their shared history is complex.

It is also important to acknowledge that during the centuries when western Ukraine, including the city of Lviv, was part of Poland, the Poles behaved toward the Ukrainian-speaking population as if they were a superior caste—if not outright colonizers. The Ukrainians were mostly peasants, considered good at best for domestic work or as laborers, while the urban population consisted mainly of Jews and Poles.

The end of World War I was a crucial moment for both peoples, each trying to establish their own state. The Poles won the war against the Ukrainians for Eastern Galicia in 1919, then briefly joined forces with them to conquer Kyiv, from which they were driven out by the Soviets. The Soviets were subsequently defeated by the Poles in 1921, resulting in Poland gaining a large portion of western Ukraine.

One of the leading figures of the prewar Polish nationalist right, Roman Dmowski, claimed that Ukrainians did not exist, that no nation by that name existed. In this, he echoed the rhetoric of the imperialist Russians. In his reflections on Poland’s future, he relied on the assimilation and Polonization of minorities, who accounted for a good third of the population between the two world wars.

Nawrocki’s Target Was Tusk

The second target of Nawrocki’s initiative was Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Since his election, the president’s priority has been to weaken Tusk and his party and to lead the right—including the two far-right parties known respectively as Confederation and Confederation of the Polish Crown—to victory in the upcoming elections. As a result, he has been blocking a large portion of the laws proposed by Tusk and passed by Parliament. During his first year in office, he vetoed more laws than his predecessor, Duda, had during his entire term.

Following Zelensky’s ill-advised decision, Tusk met with the Ukrainian president for a lengthy one-on-one meeting. Most likely, he discreetly explained to Zelensky what the UPA meant to Poles—including himself—and asked him to reconsider the unit’s nomination. But the very next day, Nawrocki publicly announced that he was stripping Zelensky of Poland’s highest honor, as if he wanted to preempt Tusk’s initiative. At that point, Zelensky could of course no longer back down; he would have lost face in his own country. He, too, has to deal with the nationalist right at home. As for Tusk, he was no longer in a position to defuse the situation. To prevent the Polish right from branding him a traitor to the nation, he, too, had to condemn Zelensky’s decision.

Nawrocki turned a minor incident into an international scandal without considering the consequences of his actions. He is a novice in international politics; he has never engaged in diplomacy or negotiation. He reacts solely from the perspective of domestic politics and is guided by his animosity toward liberals and toward Tusk.

The clash is already making waves abroad. This, of course, is grist to the mill for all those who did not rush to support Ukraine and who can now say: “See, even the Polish president claims that the Ukrainians are ungrateful—the Poles have done so much for them—and that Zelensky supports the fascists.”

Now we can only wait and see how far the dispute will spread and how it will be resolved. Poland is striving to participate in all European debates and coalitions concerning Ukraine. However, as a country that so foolishly created a conflict with Ukraine, it will not have an easy task. It is losing its status as an unquestionable supporter.

Cooled and Transactional Relations

What might Polish-Ukrainian relations look like in the future? I was in Warsaw when the row erupted, and people there were saying that relations would cool, especially since this wasn’t the first point of contention between the two capitals. There were suggestions that Poland would strive to make these relations more transactional. It will continue to support Ukraine in the war, but on a win-win basis: the days of selfless aid are over. It remains unclear what this will entail, but the Polish right is convinced that Ukrainians should show gratitude and thank Poland over and over, endlessly. It is alarming to note that, according to some polls, sympathy for Ukrainians is no longer the dominant sentiment in Poland.

Donald Tusk is trying to downplay the tension; he clearly sees the danger of a Polish-Ukrainian rift. But he knows the task is difficult, because the conflict is above all a local war waged by Nawrocki against him, while Zelensky and the UPA are merely pretexts.

In this context, the Federation of Polish Enterprises has just called for calm, highlighting the thousands of commercial ties between the two countries—Poland being Ukraine’s second-largest trading partner. And Polish companies have every interest in securing a share of the postwar reconstruction pie that is beginning to take shape. A similar call for calm was also published by six media outlets in both countries.